Sucralose, a sweetener commonly used in diet foods and drinks, is said to be capable of damaging and breaking down DNA.
Il sucralosio it’s a sweetener commonly found in diet sodas, baked goods, frozen desserts, chewing gum, and even cold and flu medicines; which boasts excellent market numbers – so much so that it is the best-selling artificial sweetener in the overseas market. However, according to a study recently published in the scientific Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, it is a genotoxic substance, i.e. capable of damaging the DNA, cause cancer and trigger health problems like leaky gut.
The health impact of sweeteners: the case of sucralose
Nothing new on the Western Front, the most cynical of you will say. On the other hand, the impact on the health of sweeteners – sucralosio naturally understood – it has recently come under the magnifying glass of the scientific community, which have analyzed and brought to light the rather important health risks deriving from the consumption of these products: another study, different from the one mentioned at the beginning of the article and published on industry platforms last winter, for example found a gross link between the intake of sweeteners and the onset of tumors.
But let’s get back to ours sucralosio: it should be noted that this is a regular substance approved by the main regulatory authorities, such as the Food and Drug Administration of the United States or the European Food Safety Authority, and which boasts a higher sweetening power than that of sugar over 600 times – without having calories, however. Sounds like a good deal, right? Sweet food – very sweet – with no added calories.
Il sucralosio was examined by a research team composed of scientists from the Joint Departments of Biomedical Engineering of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, who collaborated closely with colleagues in the Department of Genetics and Biology and of the Sciome LLC of Durham and were coordinated by the professor Susan S. Schifmann. The first “dot on the i” is that the problematic substance is sucralose-6-acetate, a fat-soluble compound that forms in theintestine when products containing – you guessed it – sucralose are ingested.
It is important to note, moreover, that the researchers have found traces of this substance also in the sucralosio “normal”, before it enters the body and is metabolised. The tests saw the scientists test the substance on human blood in vitro: “In short, we found that sucralose-6-acetate is genotoxic and which actually broke the DNA in cells that have been exposed to the chemical,” said Professor Schifmann, explaining that a MultiFlow assay and a micronucleus assay used specifically to detect genotoxicity were used to reach this conclusion.
In subsequent experiments, the researchers highlighted an increase in gene expression of genes linked to oxidative stress, cancer and inflammation; and observed that both the offending sweetener and its metabolite – sucralose-6-acetate, precisely – are capable of damaging the connections of cells epithelialintestine, making them permeable.
In light of all of this, and considering the strict toxicological concern thresholds of food regulatory agencies – the free traces of sucralose-6-acetate found in some samples, up to 0.67 percent of the sucralosio, would already be enough to overcome that theshold, says the study – the request of the scientists is to reevaluate the regulatory status of the sweetener and, in the meantime, avoid as much as possible those products that contain it.